Asian perspective on lessons learned – or not – from the financial crisis

Senior risk managers at AsianInvestor's Southeast Asia Investor Forum last week spoke about the lessons learned – or not – from the financial crisis

Chris Michel, Hong Kong-based chief risk officer at equity brokerage CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets. In reality, he says, an over-reliance on such mathematical risk models may have contributed to the financial crisis. The perception in the market that the increasing complexity of financial products was matched by increasingly sophisticated techniques for measuring and controlling risks is inaccurate.

Panellists discussed how risk governance and enterprise risk management has been propelled to the forefront in light of the financial crisis. Dennis Lee, chief risk officer at the National University of Singapore said that risk management needs to be embedded as part of "business as usual", and not relegated to a compartmentalised function performed by a few.
Hw says that it is even more crucial now to have independent risk functions -- such as the CRO or entire risk department -- to help management embed a risk culture.